


Heritage

by tisfan



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Dare, F/M, Foster Care, Ghost Stories, Haunted Houses, Kid Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-10
Updated: 2018-10-10
Packaged: 2019-07-29 02:37:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16254959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tisfan/pseuds/tisfan
Summary: As a child, Skye is dared to enter a haunted house. What she finds there will haunt her for the rest of her life…





	Heritage

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Fierysky](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fierysky/gifts).



> For the prompt: QuakeRider, making friends with a Monster

The thing about kids in the orphanage (of course they don’t call it that anymore, it’s the Foster System, or to some of the kids, just The System, as if it were some monolithic world-wide Illuminati bullshit) is that she couldn’t ever, ever let her guard down.

Even when she had friends in the orphanage, she didn’t have friends. There wasn’t anyone trustworthy. Hell, she wasn’t trustworthy. At least Skye knew it, and she didn’t try to tell people that she’d be their friend. She was a thief -- everyone was, really. System kids didn’t own many things that belonged to them, and foster parents (if you ever had them) were quick to let you know that. But a bit of thievery and a bit of blackmail could go pretty far to making life more comfortable.

“Yeah, dare ya,” one of the boys said. Skye never bothered to remember anyone’s names. They were Dumbass Boy, or Chicken Nuggets Girl. Not like anyone stayed that long. Even Skye wasn’t really Skye, but no one knew what her name was. She was a foundling, abandoned in some crackhouse, brought to The System by some well-meaning cop who couldn’t be bothered.

Her parents might not even have been dead. No one knew.

Skye looked up at the haunted house.

Of course it wasn’t really haunted. There were no such thing as ghosts. Not really.

But it probably wasn’t safe, full of rotting floors and weak roofs and broken glass and crack pipes and maybe a homeless dude who was squatting there.

It wasn’t safe. Skye felt that in her bones that it wasn’t safe. But she didn’t know what else she could do. Her declaration that she wasn’t afraid of ghosts, didn’t believe in ghosts, would be thrown back in her face if she refused on practical reasons.

“Yes, you said that a’ready,” Skye huffed. “Back at the Heritage.” Heritage Youth Services. Like any of the kids there had any heritage at all.

“Well, I don’t see you going,” Dumbass Boy said.

Skye didn’t bother to answer; she balled up her fists, screwed her courage up, and marched toward the house.

Of course, they’d all get in trouble if they were found this far outside the Heritage boundaries.Didn’t matter. Couldn’t let her guard down. Skye’s task was simple, go inside, grab something out of the house to prove she’d been there, and leave.

Easy.

There was a loose set of boards over one of the side windows, barely held in place by rusty nails. The window sill was almost clean, grooved where dozens of hands had made use of the entryway. Couldn’t be that scary, she decided.

A moment’s work, and up, and over.

And in.

The house did not smell good. Like someone had been pissing in corners, and a deep rotting smell, and mildew. Skye’s nose wrinkled up.

She could have grabbed something from that room. It was what remained of a kitchen. All the appliances had been removed, but there were a few cabinets (one was crashed in, and what had been inside, glasses and bowls, were mostly smashed). She could have taken up one of the spoons on the counter top, or the knob from one of the drawers that were half hanging off. Hell, there were empty soda bottles in a stack, a pile of what looked like ancient napkins (although they were coated with dust and spiderwebs and Skye decided she’d rather Not) and gone back to the group. Triumphant, but without really risking anything.

No, everything on the ground floor had been picked over by squatters and users, by the other kids who’d come here on dares. If she was going to keep her status at Heritage as someone Not To Fuck With, she needed something big.

Besides, once inside, the house didn’t really feel haunted. It felt a little _sad_ , but not _haunted_.

People had loved, in this house. Been family.

Skye trudged up the stairs, her hand on the faded wallpaper. The stairs creaked and shuddered, and if she’d been a grown up, probably would have collapsed under her, sending her spilling down to broken leg and torn skin town.

The landing and the upstairs hall seemed safer. Sturdy. The first door she tried had once been a baby’s room, pale blue and the crib still standing in the corner. She touched the mobile (lions and tigers and bears, oh my) which played a few halting notes of _Over the Rainbow._

“He died,” a boy said, and Skye whirled. Had one of the Dumbass Boys from the Heritage followed her up? But no, this was a boy she’d never seen. Hispanic, but with eyes as green as grass.

“You squattin’ here?”

“You might say that,” the boy said. He didn’t offer a name, or a hand to shake. He wore a black leather jacket, several sizes too large. Like it belonged to an older brother, or a father, or something.

“What happened?”

“What always happens. He died because the world killed him. Daddy was a drunk. Ma stepped out from time to time, trying to find something that died inside her when she was young.”

That didn’t sound like a kid’s story, more like he was repeating what adults told him. She glanced at the kid out of the corner of her eye. He was about her age, but he seemed older, somehow. Ancient.

“Daddy comes home, finds Mama with another man, kills the man, kills Mama, kills himself. No one remembered the baby, not for a long time, and by the time they did, there was no one to blame.”

Skye shuddered. “Well, that’s a creepy story,” she said. “You ought to be a writer.”

“Or maybe, maybe the baby lived, maybe some cop took him home, for a wife that couldn’t have kids, raised him up as their very own. I like to think sometimes there are happy endings.”

“Not that I’ve ever seen,” Skye said, but maybe Creepy-Boy was right. Some people must have them, otherwise they wouldn’t write stories about them. “You got a name?”

“I will, someday,” he said. “Right now, I’m just a potential. Someone who’ll right wrongs, judge them that’s done evil, drag ‘em right to hell where they belong.”

“Ambitious,” Skye said.

“Someday, you will, too,” he said.

“Yeah, we’ll work together, the girl with no past, the boy with no future, together, they fight crime!”

“I can dig it,” the boy said.

“So, pretty bedtime story aside,” Skye said, “who are you?”

She was looking straight at the boy when she asked, and she couldn’t miss it. Smoke rose from his hair and his skin seemed to peel back to reveal the skull, and then it was burning, the skull was on fire, and yet he was still alive, his hand in hers feeling just like a human hand.

“I am the Ghost Rider,” the skull said, and the voice was different, too, but Skye wasn’t afraid. She couldn’t be afraid while he was holding her hand like they were in a sweethearts book. “A spirit of vengeance, to bring justice to the voiceless.”

“I’m Skye,” she said.

“You’re not,” Ghost Rider said. “But for now, you exist under that name, to protect you.”

“You know my real name, the name my parents gave me?”

“I will,” Ghost Rider said. “The veil is thin here, between the past, the future, the now. I can see who I was, who I will be. And I came because you called me. You’re part… part of my future. I am part of your future.”

Skye squeezed his fingers. “Will I remember this?”

“No.”

“A dream,” she said.

“A memory that isn’t one yet,” Ghost Rider said. He plucked something from midair and handed her a perfect daisy. She took it, and as it was in her hand, it changed and shifted until it was a necklace on a chain, a gold locket with a daisy carved into it. Inside, a faded picture of the boy. “Keep it, your trophy. And someday, we’ll meet again.”

The hand holding hers faded, no matter how hard she tried to keep him with her. She wiped angrily at her cheeks. Tears were the enemy. She couldn’t keep her image as Someone Not To Fuck With if she was crying.

But the room had been so sad, the empty crib, the baby shoes that had never been worn.

The mom must have worn this necklace once, a picture in it of her son, maybe an older boy, and the baby on the other side. Both gone, now.

She wrapped the broken chain around her wrist, the locket cupped in her hand.

Down the stairs, she paused, looking back. Something in the house still called to her, still told her everything, everything, eventually, would be okay.

Skye left the house the same way she’d gotten in, and she didn’t run, or hurry. She wasn’t scared. There was never any reason to have been scared.

A quick glance at the locket. _Daisy_ , she thought. _What a nice name._


End file.
